Sacral Chakra: Healing with Creative Source

Our second stop on chakra wellness is the Sacral Chakra, the center for creativity, abundance, sexuality, and the pleasure of life.

*To get an overview on the seven chakras, you can visit my earlier post here: Chakra Crash Course

The Sacral Chakra

The sacral chakra is located a few inches below the belly button. This chakra is associated with the color orange and governs the sexual / reproductive organs (in men, aspects are combined with root chakra), pelvic area, kidneys, and bladder.

As you might have learned in my Chakra Crash Course or Root Chakra post, every chakra connects with a scent, stone, music note, and color. I’ll give a quick overview on each, but the majority of information I’ll be focusing on will be in relationship to the emotional / belief system / archetypal aspects of each chakra.

FAST FACTS:

• Color: Orange
• Essential Oils: Jasmine, orange blossom, ylang ylang
• Music Note: D
• Element: Water

Lessons from the Sacral Chakra

Our sacral chakra helps us to cultivate a zest for life, an attractive energy that is open to receiving the sweetness in life in all forms: relationships, financial abundance, beauty / creativity, emotional uplift, and in the creation of new life. Individuals with a healthy sacral chakra bring forth beauty and abundance in their surroundings through joy, laughter, intuition, and creativity. When this chakra is in balance, we are balanced in our ability to give and receive.

In our Western culture, I have found that this chakra is most frequently out-of-balance.  Take for instance our approach to work as a society: most of us in Western culture are very oriented towards our work (so much so, even our names come with titles distinguishing our work and education). From an energetic/ emotional perspective, we rely heavily on “making things happen,” a thought pattern that pulls from our solar plexus chakra, the seat of our willpower. Often times this leaves our sacral chakra, the seat of creativity and inspiration, or the thought pattern of “art of allowing,” underutilized or completely depleted. I have seen this contribute to anything from exhaustion, to reproductive and intimacy issues.

When we learn to balance and energize our sacral chakra, we access our source of abundance, joy, creativity, beauty, and passion. Instead of “making things happen,” we become an attractive force and allow-manifest our desires.

Patterns of Imbalance

When we experience some of the following, it can indicate sacral chakra needing attention:

• Excessive cramps (women)
• Impotence (men)
• Bladder infections / UTIs
• Low vitality / loss of energy / low  sex drive
• Depression / apathy
• Eating disorders
• Weight gain and loss
• Reproductive issues
• Constipation    

Patterns of imbalance happen on a continuum, sometimes we are simply not taking in enough “fuel” or energy to the center, and other times, we are blocking the flow of energy.  

From and emotional healing / energetic perspective the sacral chakra has much to teach us in either imbalance:

If we have an over-exercised sacral chakra (plenty of energy, but without proper flow to-and-from our root and solar plexus chakras) you may notice in yourself or others:

• Addictions to work, relationships, shopping, sex, drugs / alcohol
• Black widow energy (feminine), the need to be found attractive and destroy admirers
• Don Juan energy (masculine), the need to be admired at expense of true Self
• Over-taking / stealing, co-dependence, and lack of boundaries
• Parasitical relationships
• Self-destructive tendencies
• Jack / Jill of all trades, master of none
• Emotional manipulation

If we are lacking or leaking energy in our sacral chakra you may notice in yourself or others:

• Compromising vision or ethics to highest bidder or by feelings of lack and limitation
• Creative blockages and stagnation
• Starving artist energy
• Wounded child or patterns of abuse and co-dependence
• Lack of joy, passion, or momentum
• Over-giving, martyrdom, co-dependence, and lack of boundaries
• Lack of intimacy and sexual drive
• Chronic complaining, pessimism, depression
• Fear of emotions, inability to recognize or operate on emotional plane

Our sacral chakra is where our emotions live. Those that are imbalanced in the chakra can experience depression and anxiety, often living in fear over their own emotions.  This can lead individuals to shut down or turn off their emotional faculties. Extremism in the other direction, can lead individuals to be emotionally manipulative as a way to gain control in relationships.

When we are in balance with our sacral chakra, we recognize our emotions as our internal GPS system, guiding us to people, places, work, and relationships that serve our greater good.  After all, when we feel good - we do good.

Healing the Sacral Chakra

When working with the sacral chakra in session, we are clearing old belief systems and patterns of control to help move out energetic blockages in this area. Through emotional healing, we are shedding light on aspects of our consciousness (systems of thought) we have about ourselves and others. Through awareness, we are able to energetically release that which no longer serves us.

Those who are healing sexual trauma or patterns of co-dependency are most often re-balancing the sacral chakra in an emotional healing session. Our sacral chakra governs our ability to balance responsibility in relationships, and cultivate win-win, mutually beneficial relationships. The sacral chakra helps us to tap into our creative source, so that we may experience enthusiasm, personal creativity, and passion in our daily lives.

As part of my practice, I typically recommend exercises following a session to help move energy and create new, supportive thought systems and habits in our waking lives. While emotional healing works all on its own, I have found that when we combine active practice with inner work, we make changes easier and with less effort.  Here is an exercise from my toolbox, that can help balance the sacral chakra:

Energizing the sacral chakra: The art of allowing & creative flow

As I mentioned earlier in this post, our culture tends to support willpower (the energy of pushing) and tends to diminish the feminine-creative aspect of allowing (the energy of receiving). For this post, I would like to share a simple practice to open up and energize our sacral chakra.

Have you ever experienced being in a state of joy, and the feeling of flowing through a day? Instead of ticking boxes off a checklist, you seem to have the right conversations, with the right people, at the right time, and things seem to magically and effortlessly come together. That added smile at your local coffee shop, sparks a short, loving conversation with a barista. And the simple affirmation to your child results in a heartfelt hug. These experiences happen because self-love is contagious. When you are in love with your life, other people experience love in your presence.

Do you know what the most important part of any equation in life is?  You. So if you are experiencing lack or limitation in life, relationships, boundaries, romance, money or otherwise, it is often because we have not extended those things to yourself first.

I suggest a process of reverse engineering.  First, pinpoint the area of lack or limitation.  Let’s use a man who has been married a number of years, but feels undervalued and underappreciated by his partner. Here are some of the questions I might ask this person:

Have you ever taken yourself out on date, cooked yourself a nice meal, or spent a day or night romancing your inner God/Goddess?
Meaning, does this person connect with his own sexual / creative energy to bring romance, beauty, and zest into his personal life.

What do you do for yourself that feels creative and inspired?
Meaning, does he exercise his own creativity to feed his spirit, taking personal responsibility for feeling alive, enthusiastic and abundant in his own life.

How do you treat yourself, moment-to-moment, day-to-day?
Meaning, how is he teaching others to treat him?
In essence, how we treat ourselves, teaches others how to treat us in-return

When we heal patterns of imbalance in ourselves, we heal the patterns of imbalance in our relationships.

I typically recommend that we focus on one area that feels the most sticky. For instance, if we get to the question of, “What do you do for yourself that feels creative and inspired?” And the reaction is a laundry list of family responsibilities, lack of time, and even disgust at the suggestion of taking time for oneself as being “selfish,” we know we’ve hit the sticky question.  This can just be an indication that this area of our life requires a bit of attention.  Sometimes resistance is our friend in helping to distinguish where our attention needs to go.

I would then suggest that this client take 3 hours a week to do something creative and inspired.  This will feel completely foreign to most people, maybe even totally irresponsible. These are common reactions to a sacral chakra out-of-balance.  But this is where the magic happens.  For when we take time to feed our inspirations and desires, we enter into a space of enthusiasm and happiness, reigniting our love of life. What most people begin to notice is that when they love life, life begins to flow, things come together, and we open ourselves up to partake and allow in the fruits of life.

Root Chakra: Healing with the Earth

Are you ready to take a deeper dive into your chakras?

Great.

Let’s start at the beginning: the root chakra.

*To get an overview on the seven chakras, you can visit my earlier post here: Chakra Crash Course

The Root Chakra

The root chakra is located at the base of the spine. I consider this the “seat” of the chakra system. The color of the chakra is red, and governs the base organs and body systems, including the skin, spine and bone structure, feet, lower back, and blood.

As you might have learned in my Chakra Crash Course, every chakra connects with a scent, stone, music note, and color. I’ll give a quick overview on each, but the majority of information I’ll be focusing on will be in relationship to the emotional / belief system / archetypal aspects of each chakra.

FAST FACTS:

• Color: Red
• Essential Oils: Cinnamon, vetiver and grounding scents such as cedarwood and sandalwood
• Music Note: C
• Element: Earth

Lessons from the Root Chakra

Our root chakra helps us to feel fully rooted here on Earth, tribally supported, fully accepting of our human experience. Individuals with a strong, root-base chakra, have a sense of home wherever they go. They recognize that home lives within each human being, no matter geographic location.  A healthy, well-balanced root chakra also means we have the capacity to feel safety and security, supported and supportive of others, while fully accepting of our physical bodies.

What I find most interesting about this chakra is that most spiritualist types have a very robust root energy center, not only does it help to balance the higher, spiritual chakras, it also helps to “ground” their spirituality into their daily, human experiences. I think we all know spiritualist types that “say one thing, do another,” - this is often an indicator of a root chakra out-of-balance.

Patterns of Imbalance

Where we have injuries can often be a very good indicator of a root chakra needing attention:

• Feet or ankle injuries
• Spinal / lower back injuries
• Issues with the skin or blood
• Anxiety
• Flightiness / accidents

Patterns of imbalance happen on a continuum, sometimes we are simply not taking in enough “fuel” or energy to the center, and other times, we are blocking the flow of energy.  If we use the pool analogy from Chakra Crash Course, imagine seven pools of water.  At the base (the first pool) is our root chakra energy center.  If the pool is lacking in water, we may not be pulling in enough energy to support the chakra. Other times, we the pool is full of water, but not circulating energy. This can mean we are holding tightly to old belief systems in this chakra, unwilling to let go, or grow. Both are patterns of imbalance.

In practice, root-base chakra issues carry emotional and archetypal patterns.  Here are a few common ones I find when working to heal the root chakra:

If we have plenty of energy in our chakra, but little movement, you might notice in yourself or others:

• Feeling “stuck,” unable to move forward
• Extreme discomfort and resistance to change
• Heaviness: both in feeling and in physicality
• Overly demanding, authoritarian, or controlling, “my way or the highway”
• Fight-or-flight / reactive-attachment - trauma patterning
• Orphaned adult archetype: extreme need to “go it alone”
• Extreme tribalism - cult-like commitments to religious institutions, jobs, or people

When we do not have enough energy in this center, you might notice in yourself or others:

• Lack of follow-through
• Accident-proned, due to “spacing out” or physical detachment
• Anxiety over safety and security (finances, home, partner)
• Judgement over body
• Spiritually-inclined, without the ability to manifest or match guidance to actions (lack of integrity)
• Inability to nurture or care for oneself (emotionally and/ or physically)

Addictions, anxiety, obsessive-compulsions, and suicidal thoughts can all be connected to the root chakra.

Healing the Root Chakra

When working with the root chakra in session, we are clearing old belief systems and patterns of control to help move out energetic blockages in this area. Through emotional healing, we are shedding light on aspects of our consciousness (systems of thought) we have about ourselves and others. Through awareness, we are able to energetically release that which no longer serves us.

I have found that in nearly all sessions I am touching on the root chakra, even if we are primarily focused on issues in another chakra. The root chakra carries the majority of our generational patterning, so it is often where we focus when healing cycles of trauma and abuse passed down in families.  It’s also a wonderful place to “anchor” our energy. In this way we are able to translate our spiritual insights into actionable guidance in our daily lives.

As most of my clients know, I might recommend exercises following a session, to help continue the process of balancing chakras.  While emotional healing works all on its own, I have found that when we combine active practice with inner work, we make changes easier and with less effort.  Here is an exercise from my toolbox, that can help balance the root chakra:

Boosting the Root Chakra

For those that need to energize this chakra -

Have you ever looked at a tree?  Find the tallest, biggest, most robust tree around you.  If you’re not near a tree - imagine one. Now contemplate how high into the sky the tree reaches. It’s awesome, isn’t it?  

Consider how a tree can stand so tall.  Its root system, right?

Imagine how deep and how wide the root system of this tree is.

That’s the power of your root chakra.  The greater our capacity to anchor ourselves, the higher we can reach to the heavens (Father Sky, God, Source, spiritual insight).

Find a quiet place at home, or even better, go outside. Close your eyes and take a deep, cleansing breath. Picture roots coming out of the base of the spine, anchoring down, down, down into the Earth.

On the exhalation, release any negativity, fear, anxiety or confusion.  Feel burden slip from your shoulders and move down the roots, into the Earth.

Let. It. Go.

On the inhalation, take up Mother Earth’s loving compassion, up through the root system and into the base of the spine. Feel a sense of complete acceptance, unity, and compassion.  Up. Up. Up through the spine until the sensation fills your body.

Relax.

Continue breathing, visualizing, and feeling until you arrive at a sense of inner knowing belonging, unity, support, growth, gratitude.

I have found this practice to work well for those who experience a lot of anxiety and stress. Use this as long or as quickly as you need until you capture the emotion. I have also found it to work well particularly before bed, for those that repeatedly cycle thoughts at night.

*This exercise can still work for those carrying stagnation (lack of movement) in this chakra. If this is the case, I suggest focusing on releasing fear through the root system, and pulling up support and acceptance. Remember, a deep root structure allows a tree to go through change. It bends with the wind. Looses its leaves in the winter and regrows them in the spring. We can be anchored and open to change. In fact, they support one-another.

Art of Intuition

I once packed everything I owned into a trunk and moved from Minneapolis to Seattle, leaving my boyfriend of 8 years, “because I just felt called.” Through a chain of events from that decision, my sister-in-law would publish a book, my boyfriend (now husband) would see explosive career gains, and I would take the first step in my path towards becoming an emotional healing facilitator.

I once talked to my Mom at 10pm following a meeting one night.  My Grandpa’s health was failing and my Dad would be going to Iowa the next morning to see him. This was not the first time my Dad made a rush visit like this. This time I knew I needed to go with him. After a bit of coaxing, my Dad agreed.  We were halfway to Iowa the next morning when we got the call that he had passed away.

This year I woke up at 7am and without getting out of bed I sent a text my brother, who lives states away: “Is my nephew here, yet?” He replied: “We’re at the hospital right now, I will text you as soon as I can.” My brother's son, my nephew, was born later that afternoon.

These are just a few examples, big and small, of the power of intuition in my own life. Sometimes these moments come as split-second insights while I’m making a decision. Or, in the case of my move to Seattle, a nearly 2-year dripping faucet of information slowly inching me forward. In every case, the decisions and actions I have made using my internal guidance have positioned me to have incredible experiences I might have otherwise missed. Even the difficult times, such as the loss of my Grandpa, were made better by knowing my Dad wasn’t alone when the call came.

Our intuition is our greatest ally, always moving us in the direction of a greater good.

THAT’S NICE.  BUT WHAT IS INTUITION?

I hear you on this.  I find that amongst many circles this word is thrown around like a magic key, that everybody has, but nobody knows what it opens. I’m certainly no expert on this matter, but having been through my own frustration in trying to acquire information about building intuition, I hope this will shed a little light on what intuition is and how to build more of it.

I look at intuition as internal guidance. That’s it. It’s not just for women, men have intuition too, though they might refer to it as “a gut instinct.”  Either way, it’s all the same and it’s all intuition.

MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE

In my experience, many people are highly intuitive without knowing it. Your body, heart, and emotions are constantly feeding you information, only we might not have cultivated the awareness to recognize when we are receiving information.

Here are some basics into how most of us gather information:

Through the body:

• Goosebumps
• Physiological reactions (feeling sick to your stomach, or butterflies in the stomach)
• Feeling hot and cold suddenly in areas of the body, without the temp changing around you
• Hair standing on the back of the neck
• Tingling / “blissed out” sensations

Are you the type of person who can walk into a room and just know if the energy is good or not?  Think about the last home you went into - were you  consciously or subconsciously picking up the feeling of the space in your body?

Through hearing:

• A small, still voice
• Sounds, tones, or ringing in the ear(s)
• Sensitive to music, aware of how songs make you feel
• Talk to yourself aloud
• Keenly aware of what others are really saying

Have you ever heard clear advice in your own heart and mind, as though a voice of experience was speaking right to you?  Think of the last time you felt trouble or danger, did you hear those words, an alarm, or a voice go off in your head?

Through sight:

• An ability to see the path or various scenarios play out in your mind's eye
• Daydreaming
• Visualization
• Flashes of pictures or words
• Patterns of light, color, shapes, and forms eyes open or eyes closed

Are you the type of person that can see the next step, desired outcome or finished product in your mind’s eye? Think of the last time you have to make a difficult decision, did you weigh the choice by playing the options out through visualization?

Through a sense of inner knowing:

• Dreams
• Sudden flashes of awareness - the sensation of clicking on a lightbulb in your head
• Out-of-body or inexplicable experiences
• A strong, full-spirit pull towards a certain course of action
• Ability to interpret the signs and symbols around you

Have you ever done something or known something to be true, despite the circumstances of the situation? Think of the last time you took a risk with a positive outcome, from the outside-looking-in, were the odds in your favor?

For most people, you are going to be strong in one or two areas, and may get information in-combination, meaning, you might SEE a positive outcome in your mind’s eye while you HEAR your Mom’s voice say, “Go for it!”

JUMP FIRST, THEN SOAR

The trickiest aspect of intuition I have found is that we want to know what intuition is first and then learn how to use it. The truth is, intuition is just the practice of knowing. As in, the more we acknowledge and accept our intuition, the more we come to know of its nature. (How’s that for chicken and the egg?)

If you have ever had the desire to be more intuitive, my most sage advice is to be more intuitive. Hold the idea that you are a radio tower, constantly receiving information in the form of signals, at all times. As individuals, we interpret these signals in our own way. Some are more adept at hearing the messages, others feel their frequency, while some see and interpret the patterns. Learn how you receive you own signals and begin to use that information as guidance in your own life.

The more we begin to trust the information we are getting and use it in our decision-making and actions, the more information you will receive and the greater the gift will become.  This is the art of intuition.